The 1994 European elections

The
first preference votes cast in the European election in Northern
Ireland
on 9 June 1994 (see spreadsheet):

Democratic Unionist Party (Rev Ian Paisley
MP MEP)

163,246 (29.2%)

Social Democratic and Labour Party (John
Hume MP MEP)

161,992 (28.9%)

Ulster Unionist Party (Jim Nicholson MEP)

133,459 (23.8%)

Alliance Party (Mary Clark-Glass)

23,157 (4.1%)

Sinn Féin (Tom Hartley)

21,273 (3.8%)

Sinn Féin (Dodie McGuinness)

17,195 (3.1%)

Sinn Féin (Francie Molloy)

16,747 (3.0%)

Ulster Independence Party (Rev Hugh Ross)

7,858 (1.4%)

Conservative (Myrtle Boal)

5,583 (1.0%)

Workers Party (John Lowry)

2,543 (0.5%)

Labour (Niall Cusack)

2,464 (0.4%)

Natural Law Party (James Anderson)

1418 (0.2%)

Peace Coalition (June Campion)

1088 (0.2%)

Independent Ulster (David Kerr)

578 (0.1%)

Natural Law Party (Susannah Thompson)

454 (0.1%)

Natural Law Party (Michael Kennedy)

419 (0.1%)

Constitutional Independent Northern Ireland
(Robert Mooney)

400 (0.1%)

Turnout
was 569,101 of the 1,162,344 electorate. 9,234 votes were invalid;
559,867 votes were valid. The quota was 139,967.

The
campaign took place at a very odd period of Northern Ireland
politics.
The Brooke-Mayhew talks had broken down in late 1992; the Downing
Street
Declaration of December 1993 appeared to have initiated official
indirect
dialogue between the British government and Sinn Fein (as opposed
to
the
unofficial direct dialogue that had been made public shortly
before);
and
we were moving towards the IRA and Loyalist ceasefires of the
second
half
of the year.

This
odd moment was reflected by the odd assortment of the record
number
of candidates, apart from the three incumbents who fought the
standard
campaigns - Paisley, as a referendum on the Downing Street
Declaration,
fulminating against the UUP for not cutting off relations with the
British
government; Hume, hoping not unrealistically to top the poll for
the
first
time; Nicholson, fighting as the only full-time MEP. But Alliance
chose
a leading feminist who had never fought an election before, hoping
(quite
unrealistically) to echo the success of Mary Robinson in the
Republic.
I wrote her election manifesto, for what that is worth. Both Sinn
Fein
and the Natural Law Party chose to run three candidates for the
three
places;
in the case of the latter, inexperience can excuse this bizarre
choice,
but SF were I think hoping to capitalise on the candidates'
regional
strengths
to pull their vote up from 1989. Their overall vote did increase
slightly,
but they lost three deposits and I don't think it was a winning
strategy.
For the Conservatives this was an attempt to show that their
support
could
last more than one electoral cycle, after the disappointing local
election
results the previous year; it was not a success for them. The
three
candidates
backing an independent NI reflected the uncertainty in the air
about
the
future. Only Ross had a real organisation of any sort (one of the
leading
paramilitary groups was supposedly helping with his campaign -
well I'd
prefer them to do that than shoot people). Mooney had fought a
couple
of
local elections in North Down and has since stood in a couple
more,
with
a total lack of success. Finally, Campion's candidacy was
supported by
Democratic Left, the Greens, and some of the Labour groups (who
now
seem
to be working with Bob McCartney).

Transfers

The
SDLP and DUP candidates (Hume and Paisley) were both declared
elected
on the first count as their votes exceeded the quota (139,967).
Nicholson
was only 6,000 votes below it at this stage

Paisley's
surplus of 23,279 was then distributed to the next available
preference as follows:

16,082 went to Nicholson, bringing him comfortably over the
quota with
149,541 votes.

4,717 went to Rev Hugh Ross (Ulster Independence Movement)

542 to the Conservative, Myrtle Boal

362 to the other two independence candidates (306 to Kerr and 56
to
Mooney)

219 to Alliance (enough to make Mary Clark-Glass the official
runner-up)

180 to the three Natural Law Party candidates (80 to Thompson,
75 to
Anderson
and 25 to Kennedy)

59 to the three Sinn Fein candidates (44 to McGuinness, 10 to
Hartley
and
5 to Molloy)

55 to Cusack (Labour)

39 to Campion (Peace Coalition)

36 to Lowry (Workers Party).

Some
people express incredulity that any first preference vote for
Paisley
could end up with Sinn Féin, as 59 did in 1994 (and 32 in 1999).
Of course because these are fractions the true number may be six or
seven
times as many. My attitude has always been that one should not
underestimate
the intelligence of the voter. Paisley's reputation for constituency
work
is well known; I don't find it outside the realms of credibility
that
there
are a few hundred voters in the Glens who give him a first
preference
on
his local record rather than his policies, and then transfer to Hume
(who
has already been elected) and SF before considering anyone else.

One
other point about Paisley's vote that is worth considering is that
in the cases of both Sinn Féin and the Natural Law Party, the
one
female candidate of the three received most transfers from him.
Opinion
polls occasionally show stronger support for the DUP among women
than
men.
I do not particularly want to draw this point out any further...

Finally
I was privately glad that the record for the lowest vote in
an NI European electon, previously held by Jimmy Murray of the
Ulster
Liberal
Party who got only 932 votes in 1979, was comprehensively
shattered by
four of the candidates in 1994. Jimmy (who died in 1998) was a
good guy
who deserved a better result.

Past elections

This
graph shows the performances of the main parties in the five
direct
elections to the European parliament held so far (NB that the 2004
result in yellow is that of independent candidate John Gilliland,
not the Alliance Party). You can find a summary of the results of
the five most recent
NI
elections at all levels on this site's home
page and on a different page is a summary
of
NI election results since 1973.